MeTeech #005 - Finally building

Welcome back to the MeTeech diaries. Last week we looked at a change to the brand name, something that I look back on and laugh at. - and we still haven’t reached MeTeech yet! Perhaps, I will write a part II soon…

This week, we look at a post in the old blogs that was left as a draft. I stopped posting to my medium page at some point along the line, although I had a few drafts lined up that never went live. This is me deciding what platform I should use to build meteech.com:

Finally building

After looking into other options, I eventually settled on the idea that using a web-hosting platform would be my best bet. You can read my previous post if you want further details. Essentially, hiring web-developers doesn’t provide me with enough value and, after speaking with a few contacts, it became clear to me that coding the website from scratch was not a good idea for me.

It seems a web-hosting platform is the way to go in 2021. It cuts out a lot of the know-how, the months of coding and the man-power required to code a whole website from scratch. Instead it provides pre-made templates, so that one person could create their website in a few hours.

BUT, for my website I needed to create what is essentially a forum and surprisingly, many of the popular platforms like Squarespace do not offer this capability. After some research, I found a few platforms suited to my purposes…

My Options

Squarespace is a simple drag and drop, template based web design platform that provides built in hosting for around ten pounds per month on the cheapest plan. It does have limitations, however I plan to start my personal website using this.

WordPress allows one to use various different third party plug-ins to provide different functionalities to a website.

Wix.com is very similar to squarespace in that it’s very easy to use. In addition to that, I have experience creating websites using Wix in the past. However, being simplistic, it lacks some of the functionality that a WordPress website provides.

Right now, I lack a lot of experience and I am struggling to find the right help. In my opinion, my best bet is Squarespace for now. I plan to keep my personal website on there and post blogs on a regular basis. I may start posting these blogs on that website.

A few thoughts

Yep, I can definitely remember being in that position. Man, I wish I could go back in time and tap myself on the shoulder with a few words of wisdom.

I did the right thing, considering what I knew: Going with Squarespace has allowed me to create this website and gain a lot of experience in writing articles for a real audience. I have spent a lot of time on this website and that time may have been spent more wisely, building the website for a sooner date.

However, I have no regrets. I have gained a lot: (1) Creating and maintaining this website has given me a platform to market, not only myself, but also meteech.com. (2) The art of writing has been a tremendously powerful skill to develop and an excitingly challenging journey.

Right now, I have found that help that I needed in YouTube tutorials. Only then, did I have to confidence to use WordPress. Quite honestly, it isn’t that large a jump from Squarespace. Yes, it’s more complex but it’s so popular that there are many tutorials to help.

In this way, it’s comparable to learning guitar or learning Photoshop. The skill is complicated but it’s also so popular that there is so much learning content for it.

Finding this content was due to searching the right terms. - Listen to this little story: I would go around asking friends and fellow students about creating websites and come would advise using WordPress. They stressed to me that wordpress.com was different from wordpress.org. They told all this jargon about how wordpress.org is a CMS and how that’s the one I want to use. I was so bogged down in these details that I would specify the search terms too much. I would be so frustrated when I didn’t get results. One day, I simply searched “wordpress how to”. I felt so stupid when the results came so easily.

I’m building the website right now and it’s easy enough for me to be able to make several different versions of the website before launch!